With the development of the display technology, a flat panel display device has replaced a bulky CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) display device to become more important in people's daily life. Currently, a commonly used flat panel display device includes a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), a PDP (Plasma Display Panel), or an OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) display device.
In both a LCD and an active matrix OLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emission Display, referred to as AMOLED) display device, thin film transistors integrated in an array substrate (referred to as TFT) function as control devices, so as to realize the image display. The thin film transistor mainly includes a gate, a gate insulating layer, an active layer, a source and a drain.
Currently, the active layer is usually made of a silicon-containing material or a metal oxide semiconductor material. When the active layer is made of the metal oxide semiconductor material, the thin film transistor has a better on-state current, better switching characteristics, high mobility, and good uniformity, does not need to add a compensation circuit, and thus can be used for applications requiring fast response and large current, for example, used in LCDs and OLED display devices of high frequency, high resolution, and large size. At the same time, the process of using the metal oxide semiconductor material to form the active layer is simple, a process such as sputtering is enough, and such a process has a good matching with the existing LCD production line, is easy to change, needs no extra equipment, and has advantages in cost.
With the increasing requirements on high pixels per inch (PPI) display, the array substrate has been improved. Currently there exists an array substrate provided with a resin layer, which is arranged above the data line. The resin layer is beneficial to improve the aperture ratio of the array substrate, and increases the effective pixel area; the resin layer can also reduce the parasitic capacitance, reduce the logical power consumption, greatly reduce the overall power consumption, improve the performance of the product, and makes the high PPI display forward.
A typical representative as the high PPI display device is an ADvanced Super Dimension Switch (referred to as ADSDS) liquid crystal display device. An ADS mode array substrate usually includes a slit-shaped electrode layer and a plate-shaped electrode layer which are provided at the same side of the liquid crystal cell, and the electric field generated between edges of slit-shaped electrodes in the same plane and the electric field generated between the slit-shaped electrode layer and the plate-shaped electrode layer constitute a multidimensional electric field so that all oriented liquid crystal molecules between slit-shaped electrodes and directly above the electrodes in the liquid crystal cell are rotated, to improve the operation efficiency of the liquid crystals and increase the viewing angle. However, as the current ADS mode array substrate in which the active layer is made of the metal oxide semiconductor material and the resin layer is provided therein, it is generally required nine patterning processes to manufacture the array substrate. The nine patterning processes are as follows: a gate conductive thin film is deposited on a base substrate, and a first patterning process is performed to form a gate; a gate insulating layer is deposited on the gate, an active layer is deposited on the gate insulating layer, and a second patterning process is performed to form a pattern including the active layer; an etch stop layer film is formed above the active layer, and a third patterning process is performed to form a pattern including an etch stop layer; a source/drain conductive thin film is deposited above the etch stop layer, and a fourth patterning process is performed to form a pattern including a source and a drain; a first passivation layer film is formed above the source and the drain, and a fifth patterning process is performed to form a pattern including a first passivation layer and a via hole in the first passivation layer; a resin layer film is formed above the first passivation layer, and a sixth patterning process is performed to form a pattern including a resin layer; a first electrode layer film is formed above the resin layer, and a seventh patterning process is performed to form a plate-shaped electrode; a second passivation layer film is formed above the plate-shaped electrode, and an eighth patterning process is performed to form a pattern including a second passivation layer and a via hole in the second passivation layer; and a second electrode layer film is formed above the second passivation layer, and a ninth patterning process is performed to form a slit-shape electrode.
It can be seen from the above that, with the addition of the resin layer, although the aperture ratio of the array substrate is increased, power consumption is reduced to a certain extent, and the performance of the product is improved, the manufacturing procedure of the array substrate becomes complex, and the production capacity and the product yield are reduced.